


For a Higher Pleasure

by droppedwalkman



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Dark, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Imprisonment, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-07-01
Updated: 2002-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-28 13:18:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19813093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/droppedwalkman/pseuds/droppedwalkman
Summary: Kirk and Spock are imprisoned in a dungeon, and this time there’s no way out.  They explore each other as well as their own souls as they fight to escape.





	For a Higher Pleasure

Spock's fingers dug into the sensitive flesh of Kirk's shoulder, and his world went instantly black. As the Vulcan crumpled to his knees, his fingers slipped away. Kirk struggled against the fleshy bonds tight around his arms but got nothing but a dull thud on the head for the trouble. His body sagged. With his remaining strength, he called to Spock, but lost consciousness before he could realize the Vulcan was already out.

***

Kirk awoke to a new level of darkness. It was not as natural or even as warm as the black one achieved by closing his eyes. This darkness carried the cold from the icy stone walls and forced it down on the two men sprawled on the floor.

“What, where am I?” was his first waking thought. The cold darkness hung in silence, and as he searched his own head for answers, he found darkness there, too. A still, cool body revealed itself near him when he groped about the floor with his hands. He ran his hands up that long, thin body till he reached the head. His fingers raced as he started to picture in his head what he felt. The long face. The pointy ears. The thick, soft bangs against the brow.

“Spock,” he said, though he had to attempt speech through a throat thick with grogginess. He gulped the stuff in his throat down and tasted a liquid rich with the taste of metal. The taste made him think about biting his tongue and excited him, for that was finally a memory he could grab onto. He would explore that memory later, he decided, turning back to the figure beside him. He called Spock’s name and shook him as hard as his sore arms would allow.

But the Vulcan would not respond. Kirk could barely tell if he were alive, having only a faint pulse from his wrist when he squeezed hard enough. He dropped the hand and slapped Spock hard across the cheek, though his hand retreated shamefully before issuing another slap. He jumped at the sound of the Vulcan’s soft moan.

“Jim,” Spock whispered, his voice thick with strain. His slender hand latched onto Kirk’s leg, its first encounter, and rooted in. Gasping, Kirk tried to pry those sharp fingers out of his leg, but Spock only pressed deeper in return. His other hand grabbed onto Kirk’s shoulder for leverage. The feeling of those fingers tight against his shoulder ignited yet another memory in the Captain’s mind: that this had happened before. And once again, he felt his heart squeeze shut from that contact. He seized those fingers in his own, and wanted to grab them back when they slipped off, but he didn’t.

Though the darkness was too thick for his eyes, Kirk could see his friend with his mind as clearly as though it were light. He pulled Spock to his feet, though with his stumbling, he seemed more needy of the help.

“Captain, where are we?” Kirk heard Spock say near him. His voice was muffled.

“I was hoping you could tell me.” They kept walking till Kirk hit a wall. Kirk shoved Spock against the wall and pushed him forward as he used him as a guide for their trek. They went a fair ways, about the size of two times that of their bride, before reaching another wall. There they could see a faint line of light glowing from four cracks, outlining a door. But it had no handles or anything else that could open it from the inside that they could tell by feeling. A couple of sore shoulders later, the two found that it could not be forced open by mere strength, either.

“Captain, I believe it would be a logical assumption that we are in some sort of prison.”

“I kind of gathered that, Spock. You got a logical solution to that little problem?”

“It is too early to ascertain, Captain.”

Kirk held Spock’s arm in his hand to get his attention. “Spock, don’t you find it a little strange that we’re not chained up against the wall or something, like almost every other time we have been captured?”

“I did think about that earlier, but I propose we count that as a fortunate overlook of our captors.”

“And the captors, what about them? Why haven’t we seen them yet?” Kirk asked, and he heard Spock start to walk away from him. An unnerving period of silence ended with a heavy thump. “Spock?”

From below him, “Captain, I have fallen inside what seems to be an artificial pit built within the floor. Do not move, or you will also fall.”

“What? Where are you?” He flailed his hands for something to touch as he went to follow Spock’s voice.

“I am attempting to get out. The pit is approximately 2.6 meters deep.”

 _Approximately?_ “That’s a long way. Are you alright?”

“Yes, Captain, but please, do not try to locate me, or you will fall in.”

Kirk dropped on his knees and groped the ground anyway, terrified at the thought of being still. He used the sound of Spock’s scraping at the walls of the pit as a guide. When his hand landed on bare air, he almost toppled, so stopped there. “Spock!” he hissed, as if he had a reason to be quiet.

“Captain, I’m alright,” Spock said, his scrapings growing quieter and more infrequent.

“Damn you, you’re not. Are you almost out?”

“The walls are very slick. I am trying to locate something I could step on for leverage.”

“Forget about that. Just grab my hand.”

“Captain, I would only pull you in with me. Then we would both be stuck. That is a highly illogical solution.”

Kirk smiled. “Oh, come off it, Spock. Just take the damn hand. I know you can see it.”

“Never mind, Captain. I have found sufficient leverage.”

After some more scraping sounds, some of them metallic, Kirk heard the Vulcan’s boots sound near him. Without a thought, Kirk latched onto his friend and hugged him. Spock put a timid hand on Kirk’s shoulder before pulling away. Kirk instantly felt embarrassed and hoped the Vulcan would say or do something to distract them.

“Captain,” said Spock, his voice subdued, lilting. “Since I have the advantage of superior nocturnal sight, I request permission to explore this prison for possible ways out.”

“Well, you’re not leaving me here alone.”

“Captain, you cannot follow me, you would only…”

“I’d only be in the way?”

“That is not what I was going to say…”

Kirk gently patted Spock’s shoulder. “Sure it’s not,” he said cheerfully. At the sound of Spock’s sigh, he slipped his arm though the crook of Spock’s and followed him, their bodies tight together. The wall they hugged produced a small row of chains and clasps against it. One of the chains rattled out of its clasps and would have hit Kirk had he not jumped out of the way. They found the other chains could be pulled off and even had little clasps of their own at the ends. They were strong enough not to need locks.

Spock stumbled in front of him and almost fell on his companion. “What’s wrong?” Kirk said.

“It appears to be a corpse blocking our path, Captain.” Spock bent down and examined it with his hands. Indeed it was, and it had not finished rotting. “The man is wearing a Starfleet uniform.”

“There’s a great thing to find,” Kirks said, fighting the urge to throw up.

“Yes it is, Captain. At least we have some idea as to our captors.”

“You’re kidding,” Kirk said dryly. _Our captors_.

“Yes, Sir. I hypothesize that this skeleton belongs to Lt. Arroway. It seems we have completed our mission after all.”

Kirk rubbed his head. The name sparked in his head, so familiar, and yet he could not place it. “Wait, wait, who is this Arroway?”

“You must be suffering temporary amnesia, Captain. I did myself, and only recently recovered my memory. We were assigned to search for a Lt. Arroway, of the starship _Purple Lyme,_ who had gone missing while on a mission on this planet. We had found an outpost of Federation design, but were captured by the men who had apparently taken it over.

“Yes, yes, I think I’m starting to remember. But this planet is uninhabited, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is, Sir, except of course for our captors, of whose race I still cannot discern. Their faces were covered and I could not see any characteristic marks on them.”

Kirk sat down on the cold floor. “So we’re alone here, with only men who won’t let us know them. You think they killed Arroway?”

“It is hard to determine, Captain. I cannot find marks of violence on him, at least not without sufficient light to see him with. The only logical cause would be that he starved to death.”

Kirk felt his blood grow cold. The information was so hard to absorb, so complicated, though it was just a simple fact. “Well,” he rationalized. “Perhaps he couldn’t find the food.”

“Are you suggesting our captors would put food in here with us?”

“Well, why not? Why just leave us in here to die? They must want us for something, questioning, ransom, something! It isn’t profitable to let a Starfleet officer die.” At the talk of food, Kirk heard his stomach growl. “How long were we out, Spock?”

“Six hours, Captain. I was almost finished with my healing state when you awakened me.”

Kirk forced a laugh and regretted it when he heard its coarseness. “Sorry.”

A tiny clinking sounded at the opposite wall. Instantly the two went for it, careful to avoid the center of the room where the pit yawned.

“Where is it?” Kirk demanded quietly. But the sound was gone, and once again they were alone in the darkness. Waiting and searching blindly for some time near the source of the sound produced nothing.

“Captain,” Spock said with his hand gently touching Kirk’s arm. “I suggest we go back to sleep.”

“Sleep? How the Hell can you think of sleep now?”

Though a little surprised at Kirk’s urgent tone, Spock replied in his usual neutral way, “I must complete my healing cycle, and you could use a little rest yourself, I’m sure. Perhaps by the time we awaken, our captors will have come to us.” He lay down and stretched himself out in a comfortable position.

“Christ,” Kirk grunted as he lay beside him. But he could not sleep, nor did he even want to try. To sleep was to admit that they were trapped forever, that they were as good as dead. It was to admit failure. So he crawled off into the darkness by himself, a little angry at the Vulcan’s suggestion. He had to shake out of his head the surging hatred that sprouted from that little thought of anger. He envisioned other times his first officer had given him conservative, safe advice that may have gotten them killed. Kirk found himself blaming Spock for deliberately trying to have them wait for danger when he told himself to stop. But in the darkness, it was so easy to think these things, with nothing to stop him…

The clinking sound returned, and closer to him this time. Near the door he could see a silhouette of something small. “A phaser!” he said when he reached it. But he touched something else before he found the weapon. It was sharp and stabbed his hand. He let out a tiny moan in response to a wave of nausea shudder through his body. The blackness around him changed into a flurry of bright colors then back to black again as his body recovered. He shook his head and took the phaser, not wanting to put anymore thought into what just cut him. He realized he didn’t really care, anyway.

After putting the phaser on the lowest setting, he shot a wall to create a beautiful flash of light. At the foot of the wall lay a thick stump of wood. Perfect for a torch.

***

Spock awoke once again prematurely, and only after a sound slap across the face. A warm light and a warm face beamed above him. “Captain?” he moaned as he awoke himself. “O, Captain, I told you to rest.” He shut his eyes.

“Rest, and pass this up? Look at this! Let there be light!”

Spock’s inner eyelids shut at the light. “Where did you find that?”

“Over there, against that wall. Just look at this. Imagine what we’ll be able to see now.”

“Tell me if you find a way out,” Spock said as he curled himself up. He hid his face in his arm.

Kirk shook him. “Come on! Wake up!” He tugged at the Vulcan’s shoulders hard and couldn’t help but notice the urgency in his movements. Noticing that only made him shake Spock more roughly. It infuriated him to see his first officer disobey him so blatantly, to shove his face back in his fleshy pillow and sleep right under his nose. He whacked him.

A tiny moan was issued from the Vulcan’s lips, but nothing more as his body was stretched out from the force of the smack. He mumbled, “Captain, I do not mean to be rude. I must complete my healing cycle or I will never get better.”

Kirk yanked him to a sitting position after he put the torch down beside him. The flame burned quietly by itself on the stone floor. “Healing cycle, my ass! Look at me, I’m fit as a fiddle, with none of your…witchcraft.” He stood up and pulled Spock up with him. “Damn you, I’m not about to waste the day sleeping!”

“Yes, Sir,” Spock said, rubbing his eyes. It was all he could do to stand by himself as he gathered his strength. He wasn’t that bad, just very tired and plagued with the feeling of being yanked away from finally completing something. He followed the light exuded from Kirk’s torch with no notice that it was waning.

“We’re going in the pit,” Kirk said as they neared it. He let drop the torch to the floor below, and it did not go out, just as he expected. Kirk’s manner changed from sour to cheerful as soon as he tossed his legs down the ladder that showed itself with the light. As Spock followed down, he tugged at his shirt for him to hurry. The need to hurry ate at Kirk viciously, so that nothing could be fast enough. Spock hung back behind him as he spread his light around the pit, avoiding looking into Kirk’s fiery eyes. “Look at all this!” Kirk said. There was a table with straps on it and two cabinets flanking it. At Kirk’s gesture, Spock hurried over to one of them to pull out the contents. Not much, just a spike tipped prong with what appeared in the weak light to be rust gathered at the end. Also there were additional straps like the ones on the table. A small blade and a pair of scissors lay in the other cabinet.

“They appear to be medical supplies, Captain,” Spock said, holding the prong carefully. He had to hold it just right to avoid the spikes. New ones would materialize only when he cut himself with them, since it was too dark to see them all. “However primitive.”

Spock avoided looking straight into his Captain’s eyes. They were groggy and reddening, and his face looked totally drained. But he knew he’d get another smack if he mentioned to the Captain how terrible he looked.

Kirk snatched the object from Spock and tried to hide his pain when he sunk his fingers deep in the spikes. _Son of a bitch,_ he thought with a steady glare at his companion. _He did that on purpose._ “Doesn’t look medical to me. Well, whatever. We could use it on the door.”

“Perhaps the phaser could help with the job, Captain.”

 _The phaser!_ Kirk’s hands slapped at his sides to find nothing but cloth.

“You do have it, right?”

“Of course I do! What do you think I am, a fool? I just left it up there.” He tossed the torch over the pit and scurried up the ladder, leaving Spock to the cabinets. Knowing the Captain would take a while, Spock took the opportunity to get back to healing himself. The whack to the head he had received from his captors, though very hard, was not the only injury he had sustained. A small wound still lay the skin of his nape and he was worried it was getting infected. It hurt with a stubborn sting, giving him a small but annoying flash of pain when he moved his head, but was closing up as he slept. Perhaps this time he could finally get rid of it. But he realized he could not remember how he had received that cut.

With his inner eyelids closed, Spock could not tell the air around him was suddenly plunged in darkness, and with his body shutting down, he could not get up from his bed though he could hear desperate cursing from above him. He knew the Captain would try to wake him up again and be especially angry that he was not there to help him as he should be, but he couldn’t gather the strength to wake up. All external forces, all reality melted with this delicious languor so much more pleasant than the hardness of the real world. It was almost funny, the sound of the Captain calling his name and crawling around the cold tiles. The voice above got softer and smaller with every expenditure, until it sounded like that of a scared child’s. Soon there was no sound, just the beautiful silence to devour them both.

***

Kirk didn’t realize he was sleeping till he woke up. His last memory was of him curled up against himself, gently cursing in the dark. He must have been more tired than he thought. The same washing feeling as he got before attacked him, making him dizzy, then passing. Again his stomach growled, though with a different tone than before. He was past the ordinary hunger, with its loud, sharp rumbles in the stomach, and into the second phase, where the emptiness inside made him want to puke, if he had anything to puke. He could feel fatigue sit on his head, shoulders, and back, pressing into the muscles and biting at them. And yet it gave him a new energy that drove him to his feet.

The darkness around him had found its way in his mouth, he imagined, and was threatening to strangle him. _If only I could eat it!_ he laughed to himself. It was so funny, he thought, so very funny. O Jesus, so funny.

Then he remembered Spock. He was thankful a wall was near him so he could lean on it as he thought about earlier. The image of him smacking the Vulcan attacked him, and made him cradle his eyes in his hand. His fingers dug into the unyielding walls as if he could poke through them as he labored along the wall. He wasn’t going anywhere but forward, and he didn’t care. “Spock!” he called softly, more to himself than to his first officer. He imagined the Vulcan was dead, starved, suffocated, dead from his violence, all kinds of things drifted in and out of his head. Soon the imaginings grew ridiculous they were so unlikely, but he no longer differentiated between the wild and the tame as he dragged his body, now very heavy to him, along the wall.

The microsecond it took for Spock to tap Kirk on the shoulder put the Captain in suspended animation, dragging that miniscule moment of sick fear out to its full potential. His body shuddering, Kirk fell against the Vulcan, who caught him with ready arms. “O God!” he whined. He didn’t feel up to expressing his fear in the usual, energy-consuming scream.

Spock was well in tune with his friends’ feelings, so comforted the man with a soothing hug. “Captain, it is I, Spock.”

“Spock? O, Christ.” Kirk let his head lag against the Vulcan’s shoulder as he turned to be fully in his arms. Spock helped him to his feet without lessening his grip. Grabbing his friend’s face with his hand, Kirk moaned, “I’m sorry, Spock! Jesus God I’m sorry!”

“You do not have to be, Captain. I have finished my healing cycle and you did not hurt me.” Spock made him stand by himself but kept his hand on his arm. He led the Captain on another walk towards the center of the room. “Do you remember where you put the phaser?”

“I don’t know,” Kirk said, hanging his head. The fatigue was really wearing him down now, and that angered him. If he had slept, why should he be tired? “Spock,” he said, turning to the Vulcan as if he could see him. “Aren’t you tired?” He thought he could stand this misery if someone else shared it.

“No, Captain. I have regained all my previous strength with my healing cycle. But perhaps you need to rest some more. You can sleep on the bed in the…”

Kirk pulled away, but fell to his knees as soon as he broke support. “I’m not sleeping! You can’t make me, damn you!”

“Captain, it is obvious. You should only be out a little while, and in the meantime I will look for the phaser.” He pulled Kirk back in his arms, but was shoved down. Possessed with a secret tap of energy, Kirk dashed away, though he had no idea as to where he was going. Somehow he was able to run around without falling in the pit. This madness in his race was energy enough to keep him going, and he thrived on it, sucking pleasure from it as he increased speed. He stopped when he heard sharp clanks near the door. When he looked near it, the light around the cracks pulsed just a little bit bigger. _The door is opening!_ A figure of black eclipsed one of the cracks. Kirk ran to it, now embraced with another burst of vigor that got him to that figure and pulled it down with his hands.

The figure spoke. “Captain, the door was opened slightly when you were gone. I went to it as quickly as I could, but missed…”

Kirk shoved the Vulcan down hard against the floor before he could finish. “Damn you!”

“Captain, stop…” He found himself struggling against the Captain’s pushing arms and weight climbing on him, even though he was considerably stronger than humans.

“I know who you are, you devil! It was you, wasn’t it? You put the phaser there, and the torch, and you were the one who blew out the flame! You’re doing it all! And you’re keeping us in here.”

At first he hesitated, but Spock found no other choice but smack the Captain hard off him, since Kirk’s fingers were biting at his neck. He lay down and heard them both pant. Then he heard Kirk apologize again, this time with a tone pathetic even for him, after that first show of sorrow. But he would not believe it, no matter how sincere Kirk sounded. Instead he grabbed an object that neither had noticed before. It was near the door and the light from the door showed it to be circular. When he held it against the light, he could just make out numbers, reading one to twelve as he rotated it. There were two black slivers of plastic that sat on top of each other and both pointed at the four.

As Kirk struggled to his knees, he noticed the object in Spock’s hands. “What is that?” He reached for it.

But Spock pulled it away. “It is an old-fashioned clock, Sir. It says it is 1620 hours, or perhaps 0420. This is a highly illogical way to mark the time, since it could either be in the afternoon, or very early in the morning.”

Kirk felt the anger rise up in him again as he succeeded in taking the clock away. If Spock held anything else in his hand, he would take that too. “You should be grateful for it. Now at least we can measure how long we’re in here.” The clock was not broken, as he could tell by the second hand marching around the face. He put it down near the door and crawled back into the dark room. “Well, come on, Spock!” he yelled behind him, but Spock was already beside him, and also crawling. The sound of Spock’s soft, regular breathing calmed Kirk in a way he didn’t know possible here in the dark. He could almost see the Vulcan’s simple, comely face, though his eyes gave him nothing but black. All the times he had seen him gave him a solid bank from which to withdraw any image of him he liked. And all of them he liked.

Again he was plagued with a wave of regret for hitting this good friend, but felt better when he remember that same friend hitting him across the face just a minute ago. _Well, I got what I deserved,_ he thought, grinning. But he felt he must make it official. “Spock,” he said softly. “I really am sorry for earlier. I had no right to hit you like that.” He grabbed the Vulcan’s hand. “No hard feelings?”

Spock could feel the blood rush at his face, but kept his voice neutral as he answered, “Of course not, Captain.” He put his hand on the Captain’s. With his sight better in the dark the Captain’s, he could just barely see Kirk and drank in the image. In this terrible darkness, it was suddenly beautiful to him, even though he had seen it many times before. When he saw Kirk’s eyes were focused on the wall right behind him, he nudged his face to his so the eyes faced him, even if they didn’t see him. Both men could feel their hearts racing as their chests filled up with what felt like burning cotton. So close, their faces reached closer till they met…

Kirk ripped away, pushing Spock roughly. “What are you doing?” he said as he separated.

The man could not have hurt Spock more if he whacked him with a steel beam. He clenched his fingers tight together, the only release of emotion he would allow himself, as the full shame surfaced. He found himself wishing Kirk would hit him again, as punishment…

“Captain!” he called when he realized he was alone. No answer, no sound, no picture but black. _This darkness is really starting to get in the way,_ he thought without thinking. That angered him. He was thinking about the dark when he should be looking for his Captain. He called for him more and more as he crawled on the floor, his voice breaking as the silence pressed on. He knew he was near the pit when he was pulled into it.

***

A dull ache greeted Spock as he found consciousness. When he tried to rub his eyes, he found his hands firmly attached at the sides of his legs, which were also tied down. Light shone in his eyes, and he could see where a new torch was affixed on the wall. Right below it sat Arroway. “Captain?” he said, instantly feeling a pain nudge his mouth. He could see the corpse clearly now with the light. Its face sagged and its back slumped, looking like a living man wrought with fatigue. There weren’t even any bugs or rats on it, either. Were they alone from everything, even bugs?

Kirk showed himself as if an apparition soon, a huge smile on his face. This made Spock squirm, even though he knew he couldn’t get free from the bonds by pure strength alone. Kirk stroked the Vulcan’s hair as he said, “Now you can’t do anymore damage, Mr. Imposter.” Kirk left him to jostle the corpse of Arroway so it sat in a more life-like way. “He can’t hurt us anymore, can he, Lieutenant?”

“Captain, please do not talk to that corpse. You do know it won’t answer, don’t you?”

Kirk returned, and Spock could see he held something in his hand. “Of course I do! What do you think I am, crazy?” He laughed and put the prong on the cabinet, in reach, as he climbed on top of Spock. There he petted Spock as if he were a cat, his voice droning as he said, “But I’m not going to let you kill me, like you killed Arroway! No I’m not. You’re not going anywhere.” At Spock’s impulsive tug at his bonds, Kirk lowered himself closer. “Look at you now. So helpless, so vulnerable. I’ll bet that really crushes you.” He pressed his weight hard against the Vulcan’s thighs and put his hands on either side of his head. “I could do anything to you and you could nothing to stop me.” When the Vulcan turned his head away, he yanked it back and snarled into his face, “Well? What do you think of that?” He pressed his knee into Spock’s stomach till the latter yelped. He took the prong off the cabinet and turned back on the Vulcan, who flinched at the sight. This tiny release of fear from the man beneath him ingrained itself in Kirk’s mind, exciting it. He felt like a cat cornering a dying animal. With the most casual aloofness, he twirled the prong around his fingertips, delighting in the fear showing itself in the Vulcan’s stoic features. “You’re going to pay for your crimes,” Kirk said gleefully.

Spock moaned, but didn’t know what to say to that. He couldn’t move any further away from the Captain, but still tried. “Captain, what makes you think I’m the captor?”

“O, you think I couldn’t figure it out. Well, I’m a lot smarter than you think. I saw you when you first took me. I could see your green face and your devilish ears underneath that cloak you wore to try to hide it. You took Spock away, didn’t you?” His overly happy tone dropped to an icy one. “Where is he? Is he dead? Where did you put him, you bastard?” He jammed the prong in Spock’s arm, taking no notice of the blood that spurted from his own fingers as the spikes ate at both men.

“Captain…”

“Is that all you can say? Have you run out of ideas, devil, since you killed my friend and now me?” Through his half-closed eyes, Spock could see the eyes of his friend wetting. “Fuck you! Tell me!” He twisted the prong. The tiny teeth slicing the flesh that was already destroyed from the first attack finally drove a hearty scream from the Vulcan, as his eyes also moistened.

“Get off me! Stop it, Captain! How can you not recognize me, your own friend?” His voice sparked higher with every twist of the prong. He was soon choking on his tears, but didn’t care.

This only enraged the Captain more. He yanked the prong out, taking a good chunk of flesh with it. Then he almost fell off the Vulcan’s body to return with the blade he had found earlier. His toothy smile glittered in reflection against the cold metal. “O, you’ll tell me now, won’t you?” He held the blade against Spock’s throat as he jumped back on him, and Spock marveled that with all that shaking the blade didn’t drive itself in his neck. But it did manage just a little taste of his blood. But even as Kirk threatened the Vulcan again, he realized just whom he was threatening. His body slumped then, drained of all energy, and the blade slipped from his hand. He buried his head in Spock’s chest and didn’t emerge for a while. When he did, he looked as dead as the Lieutenant in the corner. Kirk’s fingers, now trembling, released Spock from the bonds and clambered over his shoulder. “Holy Jesus, Spock, I’m so sorry…”

Though the Vulcan’s first thought was to run like Hell away from him, he knew to do so would be to invite another attack. He instead rammed the Captain against his chest in a hug. He slid to a seat against the wall with Kirk clutching him, till they were both huddled together, quiet.

“We shouldn’t be fighting like this, Spock. We have to work together to get out of his horrible place.” Kirk emerged his head from the Vulcan’s chest. His face was now totally wet and reddish. “We’re going to be in here forever, aren’t we? We’ll never, never, never, never…” His voice trailed off as his body shook with sobs. His energy waned, he sunk deep in Spock’s arms.

“Do not say that, Captain,” Spock said, his calm, neutral voice a comfort to them both. “As Captain Pike once told me, every cage has a way out, and I intend to find it.”

Kirk nodded, sniffing. A grin found its way on his speckled face when he remembered the clock. He had hung it up on the wall while Spock was out on the bed, and now he was very interested to know what time it was now. The two hands sat on the four.

Spock felt his friend’s body tense in his arms and shoved him off without a further thought. He was glad he did that, but had little time to reflect as Kirk turned to him, his shoulders slumped and his red eyes burning. “It’s the same time,” he hissed. “Look! It’s the same time as before!” They circled each other till Spock neared the ladder, which he jumped. Kirk leapt after him, tugging his legs back in, but the Vulcan broke free. He stumbled away from the pit, from which Kirk emerged, and into the corner of the room where the light died. He could hear his own blood pound against the sides of his head as he forced himself to move faster, farther, longer. The fatigue chose this time to attack him, and almost forced him to his knees. He did fall, but only when he tripped on an object hidden in the dark. It was a phaser, and he held it at his side.

Kirk stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that phaser pointed at him, and the body on the other end unflinching. He put up his hands, his face falling again. “Spock…”

“If you apologize one more time I swear I’ll shoot you.” He made a slow circle around the Captain as he neared him, his hand trembling though it held the weapon firmly. “You are sick, Captain, you are not yourself. You should just lie down and rest.”

Kirk didn’t move except for his lips. “You hold a lot of power in that hand, Spock. You sure you know how to use it?”

Spock took a step closer. “Lie down.”

“You can do anything you want to me, you know.”

Spock stepped closer. “Lie down.” His hand shook harder as his eyes shot wide at the still standing man, who had by then put his hands at his hips.

“Now it’s your turn to be the captain, your turn to lead. Are you going to do it?” Kirk started walking to Spock, his steps slow but sure.

Now Spock’s hand almost dropped the weapon with its shaking. “Lie down!” he hissed. “Lie down! Or I’ll shoot you!”

Kirk sneered, “Then why don’t you? What’s wrong, are you a coward?” He almost reached him.

“Lie down!” Spock yelled. He let Kirk get within an inch of his face when he pulled the trigger. The phaser dropped with the Captain. With a painful gasp, Spock fell to Kirk’s side, his hands skittering across his body and lifting it. “Captain!” He pressed Kirk’s light-colored head against his chest and his own head against it. “O, Jim. I’m sorry!” he whispered against that still head as his head ached fiercely as his eyes spilled over with water. He threw the body away, though, when he heard it speak.

“You’re damn lucky that phaser was at the lowest setting, or I’d be dead,” Kirk said warmly.

Spock wiped his eyes and embraced the Captain, but he could see a small wound in Kirk’s chest still. At such close range, even the lowest setting would do some damage. “I’m sorry, Captain.”

Kirk slapped his shoulder. “Don’t be, you bastard. Just be still.” He gave the Vulcan a smile that let the weak light from the pit flicker off his teeth and darken his face in sharp shadows. Spock could tell even as they sat there that the torch was once again going out. But before he could mention that, Kirk shoved him down on his back against the floor and climbed on top of him. The heel of the human’s hand dug into the wound in his shoulder, making him cry out. Kirk silenced the Vulcan by devouring his lips in his own. With a hunger paralleled only by the one raging in his stomach, Kirk drove his tongue in the other’s mouth and kissed him. His hands in the meantime were undoing his pants.

Spock’s cries were muffled inside Kirk’s mouth as the Captain dug his hands inside and grabbed the first thing it encountered. He squeezed it mercilessly, laughing with his lips still engaged with the Vulcan’s at the sharp sounds leaking from his mouth with every squeeze. But Spock did not fight back. He lay beneath the weaker, smaller human, submissively allowing him to drag the cloth away from his hips and pull his legs up at Kirk’s sides. He clenched his fists at his sides instead of using them against Kirk as he mounted him. Lying on his back, Spock was still able to have his mouth held captive in Kirk’s as the Captain shoved in deeper till Spock felt he would split apart. Kirk’s body rubbed against Spock’s cock as it pulsed in harder, tossing Spock in a flurry of different feelings. The pounding against his cock hurt terribly, and yet excited the millions of nerves, so the pleasure that ensued cascaded higher and higher, with a unique pain of its own. And the pain right below it, where Kirk was shoving himself, engulfed the entire area of his hips, but held a secret pleasure in the dull throbbing that made Spock toss his arm around Kirk’s back and shove him down closer. Soon he was no longer passively still beneath the human, but shoving his hips close and shoving Kirk’s face down to his for kisses, though as they progressed, their kiss was more a lazy smashing of the faces together than anything else. The light from the pit died as the pain-laced pleasure of them both sparked higher, and when it was all released, so was the light. Kirk plunged his head in Spock’s chest as they were plunged in blackness.

***

“Captain!” Slender hands shook the shoulders they found.

Kirk lifted his head, though it sagged at the shoulders, and realized he was still lying on top of his first officer, so rolled off. “What is it?” Then, “Were are we?”

“Captain, we are still in the dungeon.”

“O yes, of course.” He forced a laugh. “For a minute there I thought we were in my quarters. But I guess we can’t always be that lucky.” The void in his stomach spread to his hips and chest, making him feel like he had heartburn and indigestion at the same time. It made his elbows wobble and refuse to lock when he tried to rest on them.

But the excitement in the Vulcan’s voice kept him from dropping to the floor completely. He said, “Sir, I have a communicator.” He put it in Kirk’s hand, for he knew he wouldn’t be able to see it.

“You mean you had this the entire time and didn’t say anything about it?” The Captain’s voice was low and quiet.

Spock’s voice trembled when he answered, “No, Sir. We were both stripped of all equipment--phasers, communicators, or anything else--when we first got here. Only when I woke up just now did I find this attached to my hip.”

As the Vulcan was talking, Kirk turned on the device and spoke into it, “Enterprise, this is Captain Kirk. Come in, Enterprise. Come in! Enterprise!” He tossed it into the dark. “It’s completely dead. Not even the familiarity of good old static.”

“Captain, taking into account our previous findings, it is logical to assume that there should be another communicator here somewhere.”

“Well, I don’t have one. What makes you think that?”

“We found one two phasers, one somewhere in the middle of the room, and the other…”

“I found it near the door.”

“Two phasers, to account for the two of us, and placed in seemingly random spots. I found one communicator at my hip, so there must be another one, just like the phasers.”

Kirk got to his feet. “And if that communicator is in the middle of the room, the other one must be…” He set off for the door, pulling Spock with him. They searched around, but couldn’t find anything, even when they split up and searched the ground around the door.

So entranced with the current task, Spock almost forgot about earlier. His hips still ached fiercely and gave him trouble even as he crawled, but he could easily shake that off. Pain could be killed as easily as it can be given. It is pleasure that is stubborn…

“Captain Kirk!” said a tiny voice that sounded far from him. It sounded again, and was clear enough for Spock to realize it was coming from a communicator, but not from the one Kirk threw away. It was sounding from the pit. He could hear the hurried thumps of Kirk’s boots as they both rushed into the pit. The communicator lay on the bed and exuded from what little light it could steal from the room a faint flicker of its own. Kirk snapped it up when the voice started to grow impatient.

“Captain Kirk here!” he said, trying to keep the excitement from clouding his voice.

“Ah, finally. I am from the outside, though not from your ship.”

“Then how did you…”

“No questions, please. I am affiliated with the makers of the building you are now inside.”

“You mean, you’re from the Federation?”

The voice paused. “The Federation? I’m afraid I don’t understand, but no matter. I suppose you would not know the makers if I told you, and it really is of no concern of yours anyway. Well the makers can take you out of there if you wish.”

Kirk squeezed Spock’s hand.

But the voice went on, “However, that is entirely on one condition: that you surrender to the makers. Your ship has left orbit some time ago, so you really don’t have much to return to, so this is really a favor on the makers’ part.”

Spock said into the device, “Will the makers return us to Federation space?”

“They wouldn’t even if they knew what this ‘Federation’ is, my friend. You are far from that place, so I suggest you forget about it. The makers will provide for you a good home, food, clothing, everything you will need. And do not worry, you will not be separated from each other.” The voice laughed. “One more thing of course, in case you are interested. You will be used as experimental creatures, but that is nothing to worry about. You will merely be observed living out normal, relatively unhindered lives that will further educate the makers.”

Kirk didn’t hesitate. “Nothing doing.”

The voice replied cheerily, like he didn’t want to hear that, “What was that?”

“We’re not surrendering to you, or your makers. Now you better get us out of here or you’ll have Hell to pay with the Federation.”

“You just don’t understand, do you? Alright, I think I better make this as simple as I can for you. There _is_ no Federation. At least not for you. And there never will be. Your ship is gone, and no other ships would ever find you even they wanted to come back, for you are both in a spaceship speeding far from that silly little planet you were once on. Now, you have two choices. Either you simply tell me that you would like to live a peaceful, healthy, and happy life with the makers, the obvious choice, or you that you wish to stay in there. It is really up to you.”

Kirk took in a breath and said, “Kiss my ass.” And he snapped the communicator off.

Spock shoved Kirk on the floor with a guttural yell. They fought at the claws of each other, Kirk smacking the Vulcan’s scratching hands away from his face and shoving him off. Kirk found the blade under his hand and picked it up. A faint glimmer of light flashed across it. “I know you can see this,” he said quietly.

Spock hunched and circled the Captain. “What did you just do?”

“What would you have done? Would you really resign yourself to living with those barbarians? Experiments! Didn’t you hear him?”

“You gave up a good life, any life, for more of this? You must really be sick.” Spock was coming in closer.

“It’s slavery to live with them! And to be experimented with? To be watched as I live like a slave? I will never surrender, especially not to people who would lock me up and starve me like that. Fuck them, I will never please them.”

“Your dignity, your precious, fucking dignity!” It was all Spock could do to stop from totally breaking down. Already he was losing control of his rock-hard emotion check, though he would still seem only a little angry compared to human standards. Though that would be horrendous to Vulcan standards. “You were too proud to accept help, the only help we were ever to get, and now that’s shot straight to shit, all because of you.”

“You’re blaming me? O, now how typical is that? Fine, you coward. Go ahead and call them back and tell them they’ve got a pussy to pick up.”

“I will.” And indeed Spock went for the communicator, but Kirk seized him and shoved him against the wall before he could reach it. There the device lay, right in front of them both, but neither in their muddle could reach it. Kirk slammed the Vulcan’s head hard against the wall and ran to the communicator. Shaking off the pain like it were a hat, Spock got up instantly to tackle the human and drive him to the floor. After a giving Kirk solid thump in the stomach, he ran off and got the communicator. But it was dead. He threw it against the wall so it made a breaking sound and collapsed to his knees. His hands tried to comfort his warming, trembling head as his shoulders slouched with his back. Kirk put a hand on his back, but Spock slapped it away.

“I want slavery no more than you, Captain. We could have found a way to escape after we got to our new home. I wanted to surrender no more than you!”

“Look, he could have been lying for all we know. I don’t believe for a second that we’re in a spaceship. Listen. There’s no engine hum, no sound of a crew outside, nothing.”

Spock grabbed his shoulders. “But what if we are? What if the Enterprise never finds us? I find that a very…” his voice threatened to crack, so he paused till he composed himself. “Logical assumption.” But he laid his head against Kirk’s chest and allowed the human to stroke his hair and even kiss him. Spock turned to kiss him hard, releasing some of his misery into a long, violent show of affection. Then he clung to Kirk’s shoulders and rested his head hard against Kirk’s. Kirk held him tight against his body, trying to still the Vulcan’s quivering body as he wept into his shirt. The sound of that weak, timid crying from a man who had lived always so stoic and emotionless moved Kirk, but the Captain did not want to further destroy his first officer’s morale by sinking into misery with him. He gently helped the Vulcan to his feet.

“Spock,” he said, his voice soft, motherly. “Come on, don’t lose yourself. Remember what you said, ‘every cage has a way out, and I intend to find it.’ We don’t lose till we want to.”

Spock nodded like a child would as he followed the Captain, his hands still firmly attached to the Captain’s shirt. He lagged behind, though, as he was led back down in the pit. They went through the motions of searching for something, anything, but found nothing, as they expected. Even Kirk slowed, his energy as extinguished as his motivation. He leaned on Spock when they both leaned against the wall.

“Captain, I believe I know a way out,” Spock said quietly. He felt Kirk’s body tense. “Suicide.”

Silence enveloped them till Kirk had to break it. “Don’t you dare say anything like that.”

“I want death no more than you, Captain, but I don’t think we have any choice. Think of it this way: imagine being chained, about to have a vicious dog chew your leg off, but you have a razor in your hand. Do you cut the leg off yourself, or do you let the dog do it for you?” He felt Kirk shudder. “The phaser is still up there, and we may find the other one there as well.”

Kirk rose. “There is no way in Hell…”

“Captain, it is a quick and painless death, compared to starvation, or whatever else awaits us.”

“A simple solution for you, isn’t Spock? It would be, for a man without any dignity! You’ll kill yourself, and me, and let those fuckers win! I can’t wait for that damn dog to chew my leg off, bud, I can’t wait!”

“Perhaps the thought of starving to death is not bad enough for you. How does boredom sound?”

“You fucking coward!”

Spock leapt to his feet before the Captain could reach him. “Not again, Captain, please! Stop fighting!”

“I think a good fight is what you need,” Kirk sneered. Spock backed up against the wall, his back inching along, till his shoulder blade nudged a stone in farther than it was and the entire wall opened behind him. He fell in a bright room, and both men tossed their arms against their eyes against the light. When his eyes adjusted, Spock could see a long, narrow hallway stretching from the pit to an intersection. The two men grabbed each other and studied each other’s faces as if for the first time. Kirk gave the Vulcan a quick but strong kiss before pulling him through the hall, though Spock didn’t need to be forced into a sprint through the hall. The intersection produced another hall that was laced with hanging tubes and pipes. Now they could hear the hum. “It…it’s a spaceship!”

“We are at the heart of the engine, Captain. We should move away from the hum to reach the crew.” They wandered through the hallways, which forever produced more intersections, more choices, more hallways. The engine hum was never any quieter. As they began to wilt from exhaustion, Spock came across a breach in the piped wall of the hallway. When he looked through it, he found a bed, a drawer, and a door, but not a person. They managed to punch the hole bigger and slip inside the room. Kirk collapsed before he could reach the door, and Spock fell at his side. “Captain! Captain, get up, we’re almost free.” He heard the Captain’s breath drag against his lungs, and that reminded him of his own ragged breathing. “Not enough oxygen,” he whispered. Though his back ached fiercely when he did this, he lifted up Kirk and tossed him over his shoulder before leaving through the door. Another hallway, though not pipe-laced. It was like the one from the pit, only darker, and with less air. He pushed on in this hall till he too fell.

“Spock,” from Kirk, his voice a thread. “Are we out?”

“Yes, Captain, we are out.” He rolled to be nearer to Kirk, and draped an arm around him. Kirk put his arm around the Vulcan.

Kirk’s head lagged as he turned it to survey the hall they were in. “We’ve won, Spock. We’ve won. They thought they could watch us, but we didn’t let them, did we? We’ve cut our own legs with a Hellova lot more dignity than they thought we could.” As he felt his breath dying in his lungs, and the breathing in his companion draw fainter, he let his gaze drift to the ceiling where he found a blinking camera looking at him.

***

“Ah, what a pity. Died from lack of oxygen. A foresight of mine, I must admit.” The Sdijre shot a strand of its glimmering dark hide into the computer controls and shut out the image of the human and the half-Vulcan lying peacefully in the hall. It took note of the blood seeping from the noses and mouths of the animals down there with the computer as the image shimmered off-line.

Another black Sdijre shot out globes of black matter alternately from the back to the front as it neared the one at the computer. “That was a very interesting show, Ru. Placing that poisoned spike near their little weapon was quite ingenious.”

“Why, thank you, Ira! The human responded just as I had hoped from the adrenaline stimulant. We could use it ourselves.”

“Of course, we would not behave as they.”

Ru laughed. “Well, they still behaved better and went farther than did our first organism, which was alone. It seems the more organisms there are, the more chance for entertainment! Ira, give me that communicator, will you. I think we should give this ‘Enterprise’ a call.”


End file.
